170329 The Urban Contract. Community, governance and capitalism

Seminar Cities are back in town

Are urban societies destined to increasingly anomic forms of deregulation and de-contractualization? Today, the increasing mobility of capital, people and information has changed the space relations of urban societies. Contractual relations have increased in every field of social life: in the market- related economic transactions, but also in the political, and in creative and scientific areas. Contracts are not only legal frameworks or economic aggregates of individuals, but socially embedded forms.The concept of urban contract proposed in the lecture combines the theoretical body of economic-juridical literature on the contract with that of historical-anthropological and socio-spatial literature on the city. Through a diverse range of ten city case-studies, The Urban Contract compares European, North-American and Asian Urban Contracts. It concludes with a theoretical proposal for understanding the deep dialectical nature of contractual cities: their reciprocity and competition, their dual trend towards growth and decay, their cyclical nature as agents of change and disruption of the social forms of urbanity.

SpeakerPaolo Perulli, Professor of Economic Sociology, Director of the Master in Local Development, Università del Piemonte OrientalePaolo Perulli’s main research topics have included: Metropolitan Atlas (Bologna 1992 and Madrid 1995), Global Networks and Nation-States (Zurich 1999), The City of Networks (Turin 2000), The City: a socio-philosophical lexicon (Mendrisio 2004). His recent books have been published by Einaudi, Il Mulino and Mendrisio Academy Press.

Pour les personnes externes à Sciences Po : Merci de veiller à vous présenter à l'accueil 10 minutes avant le début de la séance et de vous munir de vos papiers d'identitéFor the external people to Sciences Po: You will have to arrive 10 minutes before the beginning of the seminar and to provide you with your identity papers